As we get into the month of September, for a lot of school districts, at least within the US, our kids have been back to school now for a few weeks.
And for many kids, a new school year can often mean new pressures and a new level of stress. And so we wanted to use this time to offer parents a moment to pause and check in with their kids' mental health. To guide us in this conversation, we're joined by licensed therapist David Gray. David works for the Lanier practice, owned by Blake Lanier, who's a longtime very good friend of the Salvation Army. To find additional information and articles and research referenced by David throughout these next two episodes, go to our website or look at our show notes and we'll have an in-depth list of resources for you.
So visit WordsOfLifePodcast.org or just click on the show notes for more information. I am David Gray. I'm a licensed clinical social worker in Atlanta, Georgia. I work for a company called the Lanier practice. Got into social work actually as kind of a second career. My background is in special education. I spent 10 years working in elementary and middle school education, primarily with students who had autism or behavioral emotional disabilities. I primarily work with children who have neurodivergence, which means autism, ADHD, those kinds of things. And I do a lot of advocacy in the public school system for families that have children with IEPs. So as our kids grow up and they move up in grades, remind us as parents what stresses that they may be encountering, either just within a new school year or possibly even moving up into a new school.
Sure, absolutely. And those pressures are far greater than I think we really recognize or remember as adults. I want to pull back and kind of take a wide angle lens for a second and go back to psychology 101 and talk about Eric Erikson real briefly in those stages of development.
We need to remember our kids ages 6 to 11, they are in that what they called industry versus inferiority. Those kids are developing into, am I good enough? Am I going to be successful as a person? So when we think about our elementary age kids, they're really kind of figuring it out.
Like, am I going to be able to do life, right? And then starting around age 12, so those preteen and into the teen years, that's when identity is developed. And we're hoping that children develop a strong identity during that time.
So the reason I bring that up is we have to think about where they are developmentally and how that development takes place in the system of public school or private school, whatever that is, and all of the pressures around them. You know, I think obviously in a new school, you're always going to have social challenges. And I think that that's a big focus these days is the social pressure to fit in. So much is seen on social media.
Everything is heard about overnight. You know, if you make a mistake in class, it can be put on X and people know it five minutes later. So that social pressure to make friends, to fit in, you know, who am I going to be in this system of school?
I think that that's what we really focus on so much, but that takes away some of those other things that we may not think about, especially with younger kids. And that's that academic pressure. When we talk about industry versus inferiority, you know, a third grader who's not doing well in math may be sitting there thinking, I'm not good enough and I'm never going to be good enough. And so as workloads increase with each new year, they have, you know, fear of falling behind. They have the test anxiety, all of those things that feed into returning to school. On top of that, there's the environmental change. Is it a new building?
Did we move? It's definitely going to be a new teacher, unfamiliar surroundings. So we have to find a way to increase that independence on our children and foster that independence while recognizing that they're going through a really difficult struggle each time school year enters. You know, I think one of the challenges that parents have is the gift of hindsight. And so there might be a lot of things that your kid may be going through that to you with the gift of your years of wisdom know probably isn't that big of a deal, but to them is the end of the world. And so how do we find that balance to help them see the big picture while not dismissing what is a crisis to them at the moment?
Absolutely. I think the key is to not be dismissive. And that's active listening. It's asking those questions. It's talking about those feelings and what it means to them to be in this experience. That's something we use a lot, those why questions. When somebody hears why, it feels accusatory and dismissive. Changing that vocabulary to how come or help me understand or even really relating to them about, wow, you know what?
I had a similar something, but tell me how it made you feel because I remember feeling horrible when my friends didn't invite me to go ice skating on the weekend. And, you know, I think we do have a tendency to be a bit dismissive of that, but really, you know, fostering that relationship through understanding and recognizing that this is their reality and it is their big deal of the day or the week. So as our kids continue to grow and move up in grades, you know, it's so hard to not just want to shelter them and be a helicopter parent, but we should be giving them more responsibility and more freedom. How do we offer them the support they need while still starting to let go a little bit at a time? Yeah, that's the hard part, right? The further they go, the tighter the grasp we want to have.
And I have a 16, 14 and 12, so I'm kind of right in the middle of that. I think what we look at is, you know, to go back to the 1960s, Diana Bromrind, she did research and she created the four styles of parenting. A lot of people have heard about these. We have the authoritative parent, the authoritarian, the permissive, and then the neglectful or the uninvolved parent. And all the research says being that authoritative parent, the parent that you set expectations, right, you set consequences, and then you let the child kind of live in that place of success and failure. Obviously, we don't want to see those massive failures, but we want to foster that security in them, that ability to make their own decisions. We want to role model good decision making. We want to have those conversations with them. But ultimately, letting them fall a little bit is very important for them. You know, I think it's important that kids get in trouble sometimes because that's how they learn.
It's important that your straight A student, if she doesn't get her work done and she gets a C or a D or an F, well, that's the natural consequence of that behavior. And you process through that with your child and, you know, what can we do a little bit differently? So I think it's keeping that open dialogue, setting age appropriate expectations for them, and then having clear limits, but also flexibility because there's always going to be that what if that, well, you know, we won tickets on the radio. Can we go to a concert?
Can we be out late on a Thursday night? You know, sometimes that's important. You know, it's tough to be a kid.
It just is. Between school, academics, social life, it's tough. But what are some signs that my kid is not coping with those pressures in a healthy way? Well, I think the first thing we look for is a marked change in their attitude or personality. And what makes that so very hard is we're also talking about children that are going through physical development or entering into puberty, hormonal changes.
So that's going to occur, but we have to look at is this outside the guise of normal? And so if you see a child that is suddenly becoming irritable or angry over things that normally would not have bothered them, if you see changes in sleep, eating patterns, changes in friendships, which is a little bit normal in the developmental phase, but if they're getting involved with a friend group that maybe is not the best for them, you're noticing that difficulty concentrating. And another big one is if they're withdrawing from everyday activities.
When we see something greater than just a little bit of a down day, that's when we have to dig a little bit deeper. And that starts with having that trusting relationship and really getting involved in your children's life. I recommend working out to teachers or guidance counselors at the school to see if there's any observations through them, youth group leaders or a pastor if they're involved in church. Coaches are another great one to go to if they're involved in sports.
Just talking to the coach on the side, are you seeing any changes in my child? And then not being afraid to reach out to a mental health professional. As a licensed therapist, I believe that therapy can benefit everybody, but I don't believe everybody needs therapy.
But there's nothing wrong with doing a check-in. Being an adolescent is difficult. And sometimes a session or two for a child to be able to build a relationship with an adult who's outside the family, who can really kind of dig into a little bit about what is going on here can be really beneficial. And then I think the other thing is that psychoeducation, right? And I think that that's one of the aspects that we at Christians sometimes get wrong, and I believe wholeheartedly in the power of prayer. But I also like to talk about psychoeducation and what is going on in children's bodies when all of these hormones are changing.
What does clinical depression look like, and why do these medications make things better? I'm not saying go out and get medication for your child, but what I am saying is know that there is a lot of diversity in how our brains work, and accepting that and recognizing that sometimes kids need a little bit extra to feel better about themselves in a certain time period, especially in times of transition. You know, I think one of the issues that we've had as the church historically not being great about talking about mental health is that some of us might over-spiritualize some things. You know, we may call someone neglectful if their kid was sick and they didn't take them to the doctor and they said, no, no, no, we're not going to use medicine. We're only going to pray for them.
Well, absolutely. We should be covering our kids in prayer. You know, but if there's something wrong where they need some additional help, God has given us these tools, these resources, knowledge, medicine, and as good parents, we should do all that we can to help our kids. We are created in a nature to have illnesses and that in the last really hundred years, you've watched kind of the blossoming of psychology and the change and the understanding of the human mind and the recognition that it's an organ like any other and it can fail like any other.
It can have challenges like any other. And so I really like to look at mental health from a very medical standpoint and, you know, putting a name to it. I talk about this a lot with families who may have just had a child diagnosed with, for example, autism. It's OK, so now we have a child who has autism. We know this and that's a medical diagnosis and we're going to do things a little bit differently to make life better.
We're going to make some adjustments in the home lifestyle. But, you know, this is not something that's wrong. You're not a broken person. You're not an immoral person because you have this mental health condition. It's the same as having high blood pressure.
It's really no different. Well, I really hope you've enjoyed part one of our conversation with licensed therapist David Gray. He's going to join us again next week as we get into a discussion about social media. To find all of the resources and articles and studies that David has referenced throughout this episode, you can click on the show notes in whatever podcast story you're listening or just go to words of life podcast dot org. And we'll have links to a bunch of articles, but also links on where to find help.
But if you or your child needs help immediately and they need to talk to someone right now, you can dial 988 in the US and speak to someone 24 seven. Thanks again so much for listening and we'll see you next week. The Salvation Army's mission, doing the most good means helping people with material and spiritual needs. You become a part of this mission every time you give to the Salvation Army. Visit salvationarmyusa.org to offer your support. You can subscribe to Words of Life on your favorite podcast store or visit salvationarmysoundcast.org. Join us next time for the Salvation Army's words of life. These are the words these are the words these are the words of life. These are the words of life.
